Poisonous
by thefalconwarrior
Summary: Tim really needs a coffee to deal with this situation. But that's just the problem, isn't it?


_**A/N:** So I was doing Inktober this year and getting mad frustrated with some of the words. And it occurred to me at some point that I could think of a lot of Batfam scenarios to go with each word. Unfortunately I am no good at drawing people. Am I any good at writing? I've written before, is that the same thing? Some people liked it._

 _This is my first actual fanfic. I love messing with other people's characters but I've never quite been comfortable writing down something with a character that wasn't mine. But anyways! One day when what I REALLY should have been doing was studying for a midterm I decided to go for it. And voila!_

* * *

 **Poisonous**

Timothy Drake sighed as yet another argument broke out between Jonathan Phillips and Matthew Kramer. Across the table, Lucius Fox sent him an amused look and raised an eyebrow. Tim just shook his head and, grumbling to himself (internally, because it was unbecoming of the teenage CEO of Wayne Enterprises to be muttering during a board meeting) reached for his cup of coffee.

Tim was not actually a coffee addict. He only drank the normal amount of coffee that any college student who had an 8 a.m. morning class and no time for a nap between school and driving to Wayne Tower "to CEO" (as Jason and Dick insisted on calling it) whilst also spending at least 4 hours a night running around rooftops beating up criminals, and also hanging around the city as a "normal" teenager should be seen doing whilst also doing brain-grueling detective work and dealing with four nosy, wild siblings and an (almost) equally crazy extended "family", would be drinking.

Which is a lot.

This would be Tim's fifth cup of the day, but Tim felt he deserved it. The first had been immediately after five hours on the streets, on the way to Gotham University. The second two hours later, after a midterm exam. The third before another midterm, one of the harder ones. Fourth right after. And now, just an hour or so after.

To be honest, Tim would rather drown his exhaustion in a nice, long nap, the kind he only seemed able to afford while either benched or down with some life-threatening disease. For now, coffee would have to do.

Idly wondering who had the brilliant idea that the only available physics class in the whole university should be held so early in the morning (and wondering if there was some way he could pull some weight to get that changed—and, as an afterthought, the ethics of that), Tim brought the cup of coffee to his lips—and stopped.

Something...wasn't right. Deciding to take the risk, he took in a quick breath of coffee through his nose.

Bitter, earthy, roasted coffee.

But it wasn't right.

Tim sighed to himself again and, thinking that this better not just be sleep paranoia talking, set the cup down without taking a sip. Lucius coughed politely from his end of the table and Tim steeled himself before turning towards Kramer and Phillips.

"Well, gentlemen," he said brightly, smiling against the exhausted pull of his lips, "You both have raised quite a few important points..."

"Yo, Replacement!" Jason kicked his legs over the sill and hopped in through the window.

This wasn't the first time Jason had decided to disable the many alarms systems on Tim's 12th-story office window and invite himself inside. (Hey, Tim did have one of the Bat Family's biggest databases after Oracle and Batman themselves, they were all always "busy" in one way or another, and Jason was never the most patient guy) But it was the first time that Tim (who had been sitting at his desk, head rested on his folded arms) responded with a startled yelp while falling off his chair.

Jason stopped and did a double take, before he doubled over laughing.

"Oh, shut up, Jason," Tim snapped, pulling himself up. (he left the chair on its side on the floor.)

"Aw, is the little Replacement feeling grumpy today?" Jason guffawed. "Timmy woke up on the wrong side of the desk? Didn't get your coffee this morning?"

"Yes, actually," Tim grumbled, rubbing his eyes, and when Jason left harder, he blinked, trying to remember what else Jason may have said that he had just agreed to. His head was too sleep-stuffed to remember, so he shook it off and looked glumly at the coffee cup sitting on his desk, a chem kit beside it. "Shut up, Jason. You don't have people trying to poison you in your civilian life."

Jason finally straightened up and shot him a smirk. "Replacement, I don't have a civilian life. Now, kid, I know you've got some info on the Browne case..."

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed deeply. Of all things, did they have to poison his coffee?

* * *

 _When I first saw this word my first thought was, "wasn't 'poison' on last year's list? Do I have to think of another poison picture?" and then it was "well...I guess it doesn't have to be literal." And then I thought of Dick Grayson, sitting alone on a Bludhaven rooftop. Because one Fanfiction author once attributed him the line, "I'm poisonous." Imagine the story that could come out of that. Or even in the literal sense of the word, the Batfam deals with toxins so often..._

 _And then I sat down after a grueling midterm and wrote about Tim's coffee being poisoned. Go figure. Do I get points for un-commonality?_

 _Also. Dick is my favorite Robin, Bat, and DC character in general and he's not even in my first fanfic. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_


End file.
